A message from Patrick Bowland, CEO & General Manager at Michigan Public Power Agency.
We are grateful for everyone who attended MPPA’s 2025 Annual Stakeholders Meeting. Though the event is several weeks in the rearview mirror, we continue to tackle many of the challenges we discussed together, which are also central to our strategic plan. In case you missed the event, here are a few highlights from our speakers.
Guest Speakers
Jeff Bladen, Head of Energy at Verrus Data Centers, and Bob Holycross, Vice President and Chief Sustainability, Environment, and Safety Officer at Ford Motor Company, were the external speakers at MPPA’s 2025 Annual Stakeholders Meeting. There is simply no question that these two speakers touched on subjects that are at the center of the bullseye of our strategic plan. Resource Adequacy, Decarbonization, Decentralization and the need to have high levels of Engagement in the industry to meet the needs of the rapidly evolving and sophisticated customer. Jeff and Bob presented information that is timely, relevant and impactful to our business.
Jeff helped us better understand the significant impact that growing data management and computation is having on the electricity industry. These data users represent a large share of industry load growth forecasts that rival the 1980’s and present unique challenges to electric utilities due to the size of the individual project load additions. To meet the specifications of these users of power, the industry must build new base load and dispatchable power resources. Yet at the same time, these users want low-emissions power supply. More complicated still is how utilities develop rates for these users and distribute the costs and benefits of adding these kinds of loads to the system.
Bob talked about Ford’s plans for sustainability and how those plans are impacting the tens of thousands of suppliers throughout the world and our individual communities from the small machine shop to the large mining company. In addition, Bob talked about transportation electrification and Ford’s plan to continue to grow this segment of their company. He talked about the utilities throughout the country that are thinking about the future and bringing a partnership mindset to working with Ford.
MPPA’s Presentation
For MPPA’s part of the Meeting, we focused on the behind-the-curtain work our staff has been focused on. We discussed the importance and rationale behind updating our portfolio management system, along with the complexities of rule changes in markets and what we are doing to stay abreast of those changes by building resilience in our staffing and systems. We also talked about transmission and the enormous build-out underway across the Midwest, which has a material impact on total delivered power supply costs as well as how we are managing the financial resources required from the rising volatility of commodities, regulation and weather.
In all, our goal is to help our members and business partners understand us better – to connect and align the work we are doing behind the scenes with the headlines they hear and read about in the industry.
Thank you! And if we missed you this year, we hope to see you as we gather again next Spring!
Patrick Bowland
CEO & General Manager
Michigan Public Power Agency